Langer Schlaf
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: Shuichi is headed home from a USA tour when a tour bus accident sets Yuki up for call from Tohma and both go in search of Shuichi
1. Default Chapter

Langer Schlaf

By Nix Winter

Disclaimer… I don't own Gravitation. 

Spoilers… um.. not really any so far.. though it is set after the series and OAV's… and who knows.. it might be AU to the manga.. cuz I didn't read those.

Warnings… there will be violence and probably a lemon. If you're reading this on a site that doesn't permit such things, the uncensored version can be found at: 

as it gets written, of course.

It was always the same. Music called and Shuichi tramped out to make love to new stages, to new audiences. Yuki Eiri sipped some of the difficult to get French coco he'd bought for the pink brat for his birthday. It was too sweet and it left foam clinging to the stubborn residue of rude black coffee that lined his mug. It tasted like early morning Shuichi kisses. 

Eiri looked at Shuichi's empty chair, sipped the chocolate, then moved to his own chair. He smiled. Late tomorrow Shuichi would be home.  His smile lingered, smoldered as it barely lifted his lips. Eiri leaned back and drank a bit more chocolate. He'd just sent the final corrected galleys of his latest book back to the publisher, and even though it was a great deal different than the story he'd planned for Shuichi in the draft, he was satisfied with it. 

He would get Shuichi to take a couple months off with him, go to Greece or Mexico. Maybe just for a couple of weeks. Right now Shuichi would be somewhere between San Francisco and Sacramento, driving along the western edge of the United States with all the hippies and techno freaks. The Silicon Valley had not been a place that Eiri wanted to see. New York was quite wild enough for his tastes, the wild west didn't sound at all appealing.  

Leaving the chocolate unfinished, sitting on the table between their chairs, he went back to his computer, considering notes for the new novel, even as his fingers caressed keys more than pressed them. Slightly amused with himself, he thought maybe his jealousy over Shuichi's devotion to his music was like calling the kettle black.  Artists, he thought, mousing his way to a photo album on the machine, setting it to slideshow, at the side of his desktop, pretty pictures of Shuichi, as he tried to focus on the nasty, mostly empty word file. 

The chat application that Shuichi had wanted him to download beeped at him, and irritated by the interruption of his thoughts, he clicked it open to a message, "Accept incoming video chat?"

He clicked yes, but scowled into his cam. "Baka?" 

"EIRI!! Eiri! How are you? I miss you! I love you! We just left San Francisco about half an hour ago! Look what I got in my hair!"

It made Eiri's chest tighten. His lover bounced in front of some cam in a gas station convenience store, a some bit of green and blue thread wrapped around his hair, then down farther so that it looked like he had a strand of hair down past his shoulder. At the end of it swung ceramic ying/yang symbol. Eiri reached towards his camera, as if he could reach out to the pink haired singer. "I was working until you called. Being productive."

"Eiri! I can't wait to get home! It's hot here! And people are all dressed up in costumes here. I think I saw someone dressed up as you before I left San Francisco. This Halloween thing is big.  What's on your lip? Are you okay?"

Eiri brushed his fingers over his lips. Chocolate. Shuichi grinned so he guessed the warmth on his cheeks showed, even though the pictures refreshed so slowly, giving them both blocky images. "I'm fine. Don't miss your plane, Shuichi."

"You miss me! I bet you'll taste like coco!" Shuichi grinned playfully, slightly suggestively into the camera and Eiri blushed more. So much for getting away with coco theft, Shuichi's smile was warm and adoring. "I can't wait to get home!" He followed that up by leaning very close to the camera, laying his pointer finger on his tongue, and sucking it into his mouth.

"Shuichi!" Eiri protested, but his fingers were caressing the side of the cam again, like he could really touch Shuichi's face. Shuichi responded by leaning towards Eiri's touch. "Hurry up and come home. And, some nasty Californian is pointing at you. Get on the bus."

"Don't worry, Eiri-kun! Everything's okay, or K'll get'em! Gotta go! Love you!"   Shuichi blew a kiss at the camera, then tapped the screen to close the chat client. 

The guy Eiri had seen when Shuichi leaned into his virtual caress smiled, sort of a presumptuous smirk. Shuichi's nose wrinkled and he grabbed up his soda and chips. They wouldn't have stopped at all, but the traffic coming out of San Francisco had just slowed to a crawl, locking them a stand still for nearly four hours. With the air conditioning threatening to overheat, they'd pulled into a truck stop and just about everyone had spilled out of the bus before it had even come to a full stop. If anything it was getting hotter as they moved inland. Shuichi did no know how these people did not just melt!

The guy Yuki had seen, had the nerve to wink, but Shuichi didn't think he was a fan. Ratty jeans, a tee-shirt with something in German that just looked obscene, grungy blond hair, and a knife long enough to be used for seppku strapped to his thigh, he looked like a candidate for California Serial Killer of the Year. Shuichi took a step towards the cash register. He grabbed a couple of postcards and gave a slightly paranoid look to where the guy had been.  Something flashed on his right side though, and he turned to look, only to see nothing, no matter that all the hair was standing up on the back of his neck. 

He shoved his chips and soda across the counter, the post cards he counted and held up four fingers for the woman. She smiled, said something in English and Shuichi flashed her the Victory sign. She laughed, held up a bit of American currency, the one with the fifty in the corner, pointed towards the bus, and Shuichi nodded happily, scooping up his purchases. 

The bus was carrying more than just Bad Luck to Sacramento. A group of backup singers and three dancers had talked Suguru into letting them ride along. After the traffic had stalled them, Hiro and Shuichi had joined in with the games. Two of the dancers and Suguru hadn't even bothered to get off the bus. Shuichi expected they'd be tucked away in the bedroom of the rented bus.

Hiro called out from the store, waving.  The red head's wife hadn't come along to the San Francisco concert, so there he stood just outside the store with a figurine in one hand and big redheaded lady doll in the other. He lifted one up, then the other, asking Shuichi's opinion from across the parking lot.  Shuichi flashed him a V sign again, meaning take them both, and Hiro wandered back into the store to pay from them, or make his choice. 

When Shuichi turned back around though, the scruffy looking guy with the knife was feeling up under the tire well. "K!"

"What's the problem?" K asked in English, then again in Japanese. Shuichi turned to make sure K was looking in the right direction, then pointed back at the tire well, but the man was gone. Shuichi knelt down to look under the bus, to see if he were running off in that direction, but there wasn't anyone he could see.  "Shindo-san, what is it?"

"There was a guy, with a big knife here, with his hand up by the tire." Shuichi grumbled, the frustration of separation and traffic jams, and loud dancers who wanted to make Suguru loud for completely adult reasons building up in him like shaken cheap soda on a hot day, nothing but grrr and no sweet pop at all. 

"He's gone now," K reassured Shuichi, as he pressed against the tire, to see that the pressure was still good. "Let's go."

"Yeah," Shuichi said as a chill settled around him. 

Hiro was on his way across the parking lot and the back of the bus actually seemed to almost bounce, so Shuichi figured Suguru and his playmates were on board. Sakano was curled up in a seat, muttering about what Tohma would say to him for not protecting his cousin's virtue, wondering what the odds of sexually transmitted diseases were in California groupies. 

Shuichi felt paper thin as he set down into his chair, propped his legs up on the table across from him. He'd been so high when he was talking to Eiri, now he was just tried. 

The back up singers re-boarded the bus like a flock of neon hens, chattering to each other. "We should be passing Immortality.com's building soon," the taller one said. "I hope it's dark when we go buy. I hear they're having their official unveiling of their product tonight."

"For all the money they throw around, it better be some project! My boyfriend almost went to work there. They pay good for a start up, benefits and everything!"

The last of them, who was just getting back on the bus and crunching some chips or something, asked, "What's their product? I've heard it's everything from a complete plastic surgery package to some kind of vampire drug. Spooky, some mutant botox maybe?"

"Ooo," the first one said, making eerie music sound. "What else would one announce on Halloween night? Everyone wants to live for every, right?"

"Not me, Tohma-san is going to be so unhappy," Sakano wailed, and Shuichi heard the cocking of a gun. The wailing quieted. 

"I think living forever would have a big price," K said in English, simple enough that even Shuichi could understand it. English was an odd language though, like trying communicate with chopsticks the size of black board makers and always every sentence had 'I' in it… at least almost every sentence. 

"Forever live if everyone Japanese speak," Shuichi said and grimaced as the back up singers started giggling. 

Even K was trying not to snicker, so Shuichi made a face at all of them, opened his chips and laid his chair back so he could half curl up and watch out the window. 

Hiro plopped down on the other side of the table. "I should have gotten to Saks. Aiyaka wanted a bag from there that said San Francisco, Saks… Shuichi-kun, you okay?"

"Yeah, just ready to be home. Get one at the duty free shop. She'll never know." Then he saw that guy again, as the bus's breaks let off air and it pulled forward out of the parking lot. The odd Californian was waving to him, then blew him a kiss. He shivered. "I don't like this Halloween holiday."

"What?" One of the singers said, leaning over the back of the empty chair next to Hiro. "You're afraid of vampires? Don't they teach you how to fight those in Japan?"

"Japan is not as violent as the US," K said.

"There aren't really vampires, are there?" Sakano asked, face whitening more than it had been. 

"Of course not, not even on Halloween," K reassured him. 

Shuichi sat up, took a big drink of his blue soda and then drew his upper lip up in a snarl, "I vant to drink your soda!" 

"Oh that's just too much!  I bet you'd make a cute vampire though. People would give you blood just cuz you're so cute!"  
  
  


"Hey!" Shuichi said, eyes narrowing. 

Hiro kicked him lightly, smiled just the way a friend could to get him to lighten up. "Now Yuki, he'd make a good vampire, all foreboding and elegantly sensual." 

"Who's Yuki?"

"My love," Shuichi said, smiling, hearts in his eyes. "Yuki Eiri, the best romantic writer in all of Japan." 

"A gay guy writes romance stories? Do people know he's gay?"

K chambered new bullet, the gun making a soft click. "He's not gay."

"Hey!" Shuichi said, sitting up, about to blow that volcano of frustration.

K, who knew very well how frustrated his lead singer was, smiled brightly and said in English, so everyone would know, and Shuichi would know every one would know, "Yuki Eiri only chooses Shuichi. He has a Shuichi preference."

The girls oohed and awed, looking at Shuichi with a bit more respect, as if he were some kind of rare creature. This soothed ruffled pride, just as K had meant it to. 

Shuichi nodded, popping a couple more chips in his mouth.  He didn't say anything though, just enjoyed the shivers over his back, the hope of Eiri's arms around him soon. He didn't think he'd tell Yuki what K had said; he'd just keep it for himself and think about it when those fans of his made like wolves around the writer.

Hiro picked up the end of the conversation though, and it went on like that through the rest of Shuichi's soda, over more endless open brown nothingness. There was only the occasional office building, like the city had thrown out seeds and they'd scattered far by the wind. 

"There it is!" One of the girls squealed, pointing towards the side Sakano was sitting on. Immortality.com's building rose up out of the undeveloped nothingness like a tiny sprawl of gothic granite. Even Hiro moved to look at it, at the gargoyles and the one tall cathedral like tower. "The put this whole thing up in like six months. My boyfriend said inside it's got all this stained glass, like a cathedral, and that they have like 300 employees. Some freaky image in the stained glass too, a rose that looks like it's bleeding."

"That's pretty big," K mused, "If they have only 300 employees, what do they use all the space for?"

"It's so ugly," Sakano said. "I want to take a photo of it."

"Where's the parking lot," K asked, and Shuichi could hear the suspicion in his manager's voice. Sometimes, K was more like a cop than a music agent. Even if it wasn't any of his business, he was looking out for bad guys.

"American's have bad taste," Shuichi pronounced, as if that solved everything. 

"Our concert sold out."

"Those were Japanese-Americans and yaoi fan girls."

"What's yaoi?" One of the singers was trying to get the window down so she could take a photo, which prompted Sakano to try the same thing.

Then the tire blew and the bus veered, sliding towards the side of the road, sliding rather too neatly into the off ramp that would deposit them directly into the parking lot of Immortality.com. 

"Ohhhhh! It's vampires out to get us!" The shortest of the singers cooed in mock terror. "Will you save me?" She said, glomping onto Sakano, who's eyes bugged out until Shuichi started laughing. 

"At least it's not Godzilla," Shuichi teased, getting out his cell phone. He did not want to be late getting home, vampires or not.  


	2. phone calls

Langer Schlaf

By Nix Winter

Disclaimer… I don't own Gravitation. 

Spoilers… um.. not really any so far.. though it is set after the series and OAV's… and who knows.. it might be AU to the manga.. cuz I didn't read those.

Warnings… there will be violence and probably a lemon. If you're reading this on a site that doesn't permit such things, the uncensored version can be found at: 

And come visit my site at www.onepinkrose.com

Two

Yuki Eiri sat up, the phone still ringing without any regard for his headache or the dream that almost refused to let go of him. In it, some blond bastard had hurt Shuichi, had terrified him, chased him through dark halls. Cold sweat covered Eiri's body, worse than any nightmare he'd had in his whole life. He grabbed the phone, the image of Shuichi's tear filled eyes in his mind. It was so vivid, Shuichi with dark blood on his lips. Eiri blinked, made a second attempt to get his voice to work, "Shuichi?" 

"Eiri?" It wasn't Shuichi. It was Tohma and he sounded like he'd had the same dream Eiri had. "I need you to come to California. Eiri, I've sent a driver to get you. Don't watch the news." 

"Explain." Eiri was up out of bed already, still wearing his pants and one sock. He grabbed a shirt, a Christian Dior tuxedo shirt that just happened to be on the side of the closet closest to where he got out of bed. 

"The tour bus had trouble."

"Shuichi?" Eiri started buttoning his shirt already crooked, cordless phone to his ear as his feet looked for his shoes.

"We don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"  Foot half way into his shoe, voice absolute ice.

"They'd gone into a corporate office building. It seems there was a party, for Halloween. Suguru was in the bus. The building exploded. Crews are digging now. Sakano and Hiro have been found, taken to San Francisco Medical. I have not heard about K or Shuichi."

Eiri sat down on the bed, shoe still half on. "I had a dream, about Shuichi," he said, then frustrated he shoved his foot all the way into the shoe. "I will be on the first flight."

"I will come with the driver. Wait for me. We will fly together."

"No, I'll meet you at the airport. When's the next flight?" 

"23:00. Take a taxi then. There is time. Do not drive."

No one was ever going to let him live down that 102 ticket. "I am driving. Email me details." 

"Eiri-san, we should go together." Tohma tried again.

Eiri disconnected the call, switched the phone off. Not even Tohma could will a cell phone back on, Eiri had tested it

His palm computer with mobile email access in the inside pocket of his favorite rain coat, Eiri left the apartment in a daze.  

Tohma met him at the airport, looking not nearly as rumpled as Eiri, but not himself either. Mika accompanied him and paid for first class tickets for all of them. Tohma bought Eiri a rum and coke and this time he drank it and followed it with a beer, then another. 

Once they were on the plane Eiri fell into a restless sleep, seduced there by a so life like Shuichi appearing to him every time he closed his eyes. Mika and Tohma took the middle seats. 

Eiri opened his eyes back in the same dream world as he'd woken from when Tohma called, though this time, the room was gone and Shuichi sat on a broken granite wall, wearing only one of Eiri's good shirts, the ones he wasn't supposed to be messing up, unbuttoned at the throat, open over slender thighs. 

"Hi Eiri. Missed you."

"Where the hell are you, Shuichi? I'm coming to America to look for you."

"But we're here together. When you get here, you'll find me."

Eiri moved closer, crossing the dream world without walking. He touched Shuichi's bare knee, the bruise that was turning the skin above it purple. "Who did this?"

"Doesn't matter. He's gone now. Have you seen Hiro? He was in the elevator, he and K. I would have been, but he said he wanted me safe."

"Who, Shuichi? You're alive, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I'm alive. I know I'm alive because I don't hurt anymore."

"Eiri!" This time it was Tohma's voice, Tohma's hand on his shoulder shaking gently, but Eiri didn't realize that until he'd landed a solid punch to Tohma's nose. 

The flight attendant's eyes were wide as she stared and Eiri gave her glare back and dropped back into his seat. "Tohma, I'm sorry."

"We're landing, Eiri," Mika said, accusingly, as she pressed a cloth to her husband's nose. "We're landing and they've found K and Hiro."

"In an elevator?"

"How did you know?"

  
"Shuichi's alive."

"How do you know that?"

"I do." Shivering, Eiri fastened his seatbelt and watched out the window. "Because I do." 


	3. Zippers

Langer Schlaf 3/?  
  
By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimer... I don't own Gravitation.   
  
Spoilers... um.. not really any so far.. though it is set after the series and OAV's... and who knows.. it might be AU to the manga.. cuz I didn't read those.  
  
Warnings... there will be violence and probably a lemon. If you're reading this on a site that doesn't permit such things, the uncensored version can be found at:   
  
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YukiandShuichi/  
  
Tokala.rulestheweb.com Shonen-ai books are good!  
  
Uesugi Eiri left the plane, the airport with a determination that turned his cab driver into a quiet person, but didn't make the miles any shorter. Miles. Not kilometers like a civilized country, there were miles and miles of empty nothing, just the occasional building after they left the city. Mika sat between Tohma and him, constantly trying to get his hand, as if he were her big brother again and somehow meant to comfort, provide some kind of security. It took all his effort not to smack her searching fingers away. He did not need comfort for himself. Shuichi was alive.   
  
The horizon became the outline of the rubble of a building so suddenly. The horizon might have continued out to each side, followed the line of the over pass farther up the highway, but for Eiri, it was simply a huge pile of broken concrete and glass, like a pile of sushi dropped from the table, no more real than black ruined California rolls and paper walls. His palm pressed to the glass of the window, glass hot from the California air, unreal to him. Shuichi was inside that pile.   
  
He didn't feel Mika's grip on his other hand until her nails began to cut into his palm. Golden eyes glared at her and she pulled back even as Tohma's arm went around her protectively. They pulled into the parking lot and the driver barely got the taxi stopped before Yuki had the door open, the sole of his designer shoe sticking lightly to the new asphalt. Cold inside, furiously icy, he couldn't be Eiri as he walked towards the ruin of glass and modern architecture. Mika called to him, a distant voice, fragile like his hold himself, as unreal as their Tokyo apartment was to the grasshoppers making little clicking sounds in the grass surrounding the parking lot.   
  
His dream, of Shuichi crying out for him, of Shuichi's terror, he didn't know if that was real now or not, if it had just been the passive of Shuichi's spirit over him on his way to the, the whatever awaited the dead. Tohma met the police officer who had been approaching Eiri, and Yuki walked right by them both, around the perimeter. His eyes felt dry, dry enough to be unusual, odd. He counted the body bags, black thick plastic, plastic coated canvas, maybe. Yuki didn't know what Americans used for such things, but there were forty-three of them. Hiro and K were at the hospital. Other's must have survived. It was simple odds.   
  
He closed his eyes and Shuichi appeared, right before him, grinning, pink hair all wild, that same bruise on his knee, dress shirt covering him. "Eiri," Shuichi purred, "Why are you upset? It's just a shirt, you know? I'll buy you another one!"   
  
Yuki let his eyes stay closed, watched the smiling Shuichi sitting on some wall. No. It was a counter, no, a bar, a mini bar. "Where are you," he mouthed. "Where are you, shitty brat?"  
  
"I don't know, Eiri. Am I lost?"  
  
"Sir?" A voice intruded and Yuki gave up a solid death glare.   
  
The person, a young woman with dark hair and EMS on her cap, glared right back. "Describe the person you're searching for."  
  
"Male, early twenties, pink hair." He stopped when she flinched at the pink hair. "You have that person," he asked coldly.  
  
"We have one that you can make a possible id on." It wasn't standard. Yuki Eiri was the only family member, of any kind allowed on site. That was mostly Tohma's doing.   
  
It was Tohma's voice that interrupted next. "I will look," he said in stilted English. "I can make an identification as well as you can, Eiri."  
  
Yuki reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his cigarettes, just holding the box in his hand. "I will do it." Threat, just statement, sometimes it was hard to tell with Yuki.   
  
Tohma didn't follow as Yuki walked into the garden of black mounds. Mika didn't either. Yuki hated being in America. It did not matter which coast he was on, always there was death.   
  
A voice, fragile and lost sounding whispered in his ear, so clear that he could hear it, feel the coco scent breath move his hair. "I'm not there, Eiri! I'm not there! Don't look for me there!"  
  
He put the cigarette box back inside his jacket and squatted down by the black garment bag the woman had stopped by. She held out a pair of gloves to him, but he didn't look up, didn't want to see her face, and he didn't want the gloves. It was a big zipper, black plastic. He'd thought they ought to be brass, at least brass zippers for the dead. It wasn't fair to fly plastic class, he thought, fingering the pull. The mount under the plastic wasn't in the right order either, not like Shuichi under a blanket, one arm over the back of the couch, knee drawn up, all sprawled out. No, it was laid out straight, one long line. Shuichi couldn't sleep like that. Yuki knew that for a fact, the singer never held still for more than a few minutes. So that meant that this couldn't be Shuichi, didn't it.  
  
"I'm scared," Shuichi's voice said in his ear.   
  
Yuki pulled the zipper quick and hard, opening the bag as if it were nothing more than a suit bag, just one more task to do before he did an interview or pitched a book. Pink popped up out of the opening, neon and brassy, and nylon. Only then did he realize he'd been holding his breath. "It's a wig." He pulled it up, just a little, fingering the cheap nylon Barbie doll hair wig. "It's not Shindo Shuichi."  
  
He paused there though, fingers trembling against the zipper pull. The face between the zipper opening, it was slashed, almost as if an animal had gnawed it, a large animal, ripped right through to the teeth. He pulled the zipper down just a bit more, morbid curiosity perhaps, perhaps the warrior in him looking at the tracks of his enemy. The throat too was ripped away, exposing red muscle and shiny silver connective tissue. Bile burned up his throat and he turned away, holding it in until he'd cleared the black mount forest, at least.   
  
"Eiri, I knew it wasn't going to be me," Shuichi whispered against his ear. "I'm not dead."   
  
Yuki Eiri splattered blood of his own over the pavement, up from a stomach that might never fully heal. 


	4. The Night Before

Langer Schlaf 3/?  
  
By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimer... I don't own Gravitation.   
  
Spoilers... um.. not really any so far.. though it is set after the series and OAV's... and who knows.. it might be AU to the manga.. cuz I didn't read those.  
  
Warnings... there will be violence and probably a lemon. If you're reading this on a site that doesn't permit such things, the uncensored version can be found at:   
  
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YukiandShuichi/  
  
Tokala.rulestheweb.com Shonen-ai books are good!  
  
The Night Before  
  
Shuichi considered himself rather sophisticated. It wasn't like living with Eiri hadn't broadened his horizons. Wine, cheese, and the best French take out in the city, not to mention an awful lot of books and research materials that the singer couldn't help but look at just a little had made Shuichi's world a great deal bigger. Not nearly big enough to contain his adoration for the writer, but a lot bigger than it had been when he'd jumped into the road to get Eiri's attention. The building of Immortality.com put his eyes wide anyway.   
  
The carpet spread out over the oval entrance like dark gray Italian wool, smooth and entirely too elite to actually accept being walked on by ratty comfortable trainers. Hiro put his hands on Shuichi's shoulders and gave a shove, pushing the singer farther into the lobby. One whole wall flowed with pink water, rose petals floating in the pool below. The wall on the other side of the building looked endless, a starscape that moved through a loop that lasted at least ten minutes, following the path of something launched from the Earth, shooting out past the moon, Mars, and on past planets that Shuichi didn't know names for.   
  
Hiro gave him a gentle shake. "Shu! You got heat stroke?"  
  
"We gotta get one of those! For the stage, behind, you know? Shot fire works on it!" Shuichi was pointing at the two story tall projection that looked realer than any thing he'd seen in the theater! He had to learn the names of those planets! That had been covered in school, he was sure, and he vaguely remembered writing some song about the stars and love and stuff.   
  
Hiro had leaned over a bit, one elbow on each of Shuichi's shoulders. "This place gives me the creeps, Shu. I mean the wall is bleeding over there. They take Halloween way too seriously here."  
  
"Bleeding?" Shuichi looked back at the pink waterfall, and thought, yeah, maybe it looked like blood.   
  
K leaned back, stretching his back. "I will call Tohma. It's air conditioned, nice place to break down." More comfortable with the whole Halloween thing maybe, K leaned over, looked into Shuichi's eyes, "I'll see if we can get a smaller one of those walls, get Mr. Yuki recorded on it, at least ten minutes of click click click, and Shuichi-kun will never be lonely again!"  
  
Shuichi wrinkled up his nose and doubled up a fist, the calculations of if he really wanted to hit his manager or not clearly visible in his violet eyes. K laughed, fingers laced behind his head, as he walked over to the very elegant Morticia behind the counter.   
  
A female voice, high pitched and sounding irritated made him cringe and look longingly back out at the bus, until he heard his name. He was really going to have to learn English too, especially if he was going to have fans in English. Maybe do a song in English! When he turned to face here with a smile though, his eyes went wide again, bright wide, and he elbowed Hiro hard in the ribs to get him to stop laughing.   
  
The person approaching them at full speed had to be a guy, Shuichi thought because he was a guy, and this person was wearing his clothes. Sort of. Bright pink hair like a dolly in a discount store, neon strawberry wind that had nothing at all to do with the way his own hair felt silky when Eiri touched it, stood up around this guys face. Solid pink gloss covered lips thicker than stage make-up and those lips were curled in almost a snarl. It was the yellow satin coat with orange lame trim that really got him though, bright like if he wore that on stage, he'd burst into flames, Shuichi took a step back, violet eyes blinking. She, he decided it was a she, as the hips wearing his black shorts were a little too wide, and the perfume wafting from her was something lightly floral, kinda cheap, he thought. She was yelling at him in English, waving her finger, and he decided she must be a fan, and this was some American custom. Thoughts of singing in English were fading fast already. He cleared his throat, held out one hand and gave a smile that would soften even Eiri, "Watashi wa Shindou Shuichi," he chirped, just like it was for a video.  
  
She slapped his hand, hard, got right up in his face, and the only words he understood were fake, Japanese, I'm Shuichi! He swallowed, wanted Eiri more than he thought he'd ever done. Nose twitching, Hiro still laughing, Shuichi twitched another smile and tried again, "Hai, Yes, Shindou Shuichi no Bad Luck desu! I wa Shuichi is."  
  
Rolling her eyes, she planted her fists on her hips, one foot twitching, as if she might just decide to kick him. This time he got the words did, RSVP, you be Gackt or Hide, jrock, and crash.  
  
He nodded enthusiastically, pointed out the window to the bus with the banner tied to the side that read, "Bad Luck California Tour!" He added, "Crash!" Then he made an explode motion with his lips and hands before pointing to the flat tired tilting the bus. He was sure that it was just his imagination that the bus was still wobbling. "Boom!"  
  
She stared out into the parking lot, then both hands when to her cheeks, eyes wide, face going pale, even under her make up. "Shindou Shuichi! I love you! Ai Shiteru! Ai Shiteru!"   
  
His mouth dropped open and she threw her arms around his neck and planted her pink glossy lips right on his. He sputtered. Her tongue slipped into his mouth. And somehow, Hiro was in the middle between them, Shuichi leaning back to back with him, panting and wiping at his mouth. Nothing worse than the taste of cheap lip gloss when he wanted stale coffee and thin lips! "ITAI! Itai!" He howled melodramatically.   
  
The girl took that to mean something good and she kissed Hiro just the same which made the tall guitarist twitch like a cat caught in an electric current. K was already responding to Shuichi's howling though and was quite comfortable to lay his arm around the satin Shuichi clone's shoulders and guide her away, out to the bus with the temptation of seeing Shindou-san's private bus and did she want an autographed copy, perhaps a copy of the new CD that wasn't released here yet!  
  
Still back to back with Hiro, as if they were ready to fend off a herd of wild American fan girls. Nervous, over hot, Shuichi fumbled his phone out again, but still got no reception. This didn't happen in Tokyo!  
  
A lot of things didn't happen in Tokyo, such as girls dressing up as him, or guys dressing up as Yuki Eiri.   
  
"Hello," a rich, vowel curling voice whispered. And he looked up to find himself looking into dark blue eyes in a face no more than ten cm from his face, a face he had no idea at all how it had gotten that close without him having some idea it was coming. "Mr. Shuichi, you're a real artist."  
  
"Uh," Shuichi said, shaking his head hard. He'd understood the English words, beautiful soft melodic words. Confused he held out his hand and introduced himself again. Hiro's warmth left his back, and he looked over his shoulder to see Hiro walking away with a couple of girls, one on each arm, laughing at some joke of his. Shuichi frowned, felt jealous for Aiyaka and realized how stupid that was, even as one of the girls ran her fingers down Hiro's cheek. "Uh," he said again to blond man holding his arm, tucking his hand into his elbow.   
  
"No need to be afraid, Shuichi. Bad timing is sometimes the greatest of gifts. Artists that die young and beautiful are never forgotten, you see?"  
  
Shuichi tried to pull his and free, but just found the air too thick. It was as if he'd become two people, the pink haired singer leaning against the tall blond man and the terrified spirit clawing at himself, screaming at his body not to go up those stairs, not to tilt his head back that way, and turning towards Tokyo to call for help from his most trusted and loved source. "Eiri! Eiri, help me!"  
  
His body felt fingers glide over his throat, icy cold breath on his skin. His spirit curled up tight against Eiri's sleeping body, face hid against his arm, one sleeping arm thrown over him protectively, even if it was just a spirit in his dream.   
  
1 


	5. Silent Shuichi

Langer Schlaf 5/? By Nix Winter Disclaimer. I don't own Gravitation. Spoilers. um.. not really any so far.. though it is set after the series and OAV's. and who knows.. it might be AU to the manga.. cuz I didn't read those.  
  
Notes: The direction I'd originally planned to go with this story.. doesn't work now.. so I'm going in another direction. I hope it works okay.  
  
Warnings. there will be violence and probably a lemon. If you're reading this on a site that doesn't permit such things, the uncensored version can be found at:  
  
Eiri sat down on the pavement, watching the rescue workers continue. Grief aches like it's a scar on the world, a great raven torn through the soul giving the eyes acid to cry. Eiri knew that great words like. I can't live without him, or I'm going to die, that these were just words and they wouldn't mean anything. That there was no bargaining with heaven. He'd already tried that and Shuichi was what Heaven had given him. He'd been alone before, numb, living in his stories. He could do it again. Dead wasn't bad, after all. It wasn't like Shuichi was buried under all that debris waiting for Eiri to come save him. "I felt him in my dreams. I tell myself. he's dead. I can deal with this, but I can hear him, calling to me, Touma."  
  
"It was an unusual love between you and he," Touma, who had squatted beside, nearly behind him, arms laying on his knees, fingers laced easily together. "I don't think Shindou is dead."  
  
"Everyone who they've brought out in the last hour or so has been," Eiri reasoned, trying to get into that comfortable numb place. "The girl, with the pink wig, her throat was ripped out."  
  
"Shindou did not get to where he was by being stupid, Eiri," Touma said. He wished he could send both of them back to the coast. He had a photo in his desk drawer, of them, both of them touched with sand and rain, clinging to each other and locked out of Eiri's apartment and showing up at Mika's and his instead. That had been right after Yuki had asked to be called Eiri again. Whatever they'd done at that little vacation house had healed them both. "I'll give you the vacation house for a month, when we all get back to Tokyo."  
  
Eiri leaned, his head resting on Touma's shoulder. Just a small comforting movement, such a big thing for the Eiri that Touma had known before Shindou. "How could this have happened? What ripped out that girl's throat? Why couldn't Shindou just be some guy working in a cd shop and coming home at night?"  
  
Touma's laughter was delicate, like his keyboarding, everything on key. "Because then he wouldn't have had the ego to put up with you. Do you want to go to the hospital with me, see Hiro and K?"  
  
"No. I want to sit here." Eiri wrapped his arms around his knees. "Give me your hat though. My face is getting sunburned."  
  
"There's my Eiri," Touma said, a guilty smile lifting his lips as he put a purple with a white feather band on Eiri's head. "You will call a cab when you're ready, or call me for any reason at all."  
  
"I'm an arrogant prick. You know I will." Eiri pulled the hat forward to keep the California sun from roasting his nose. "Thank you, Touma."  
  
"I'll be back."  
  
"Don't. I'll come when I'm ready."  
  
Eiri wasn't sure when Touma left, or where the tears came from. He was pretty sure that Shuichi wasn't really sitting there with him, cheek resting on his fingers. But he could feel soft hair, silky pink hair, as he combed his fingers over it. He felt the weight of Shuichi leaning against his knees, felt the movement of his chest as he breathed. He felt the smooth and unbroken skin of his throat. And they sat there, Eiri and a half solid Shuichi who would not turn to look at him. It was the other side of his throat that he didn't want seen. It was like the time he'd gotten a black eye and tried to hide it. Eiri was a great studier of Shindou Shuichi though, and knew every little subtle message his body sent. Even if he was dead.  
  
They sat there that way, comforting each other without words, without actually being in the same place. The sun went down, slowly, clawing red across the horizon as if it were an angry Japanese sun not some hippy song California sun. The emergency workers left, took all the bodies with them. When they tried to get him to leave. He spoke Japanese at them. They got frustrated. He pulled out his cell phone, called his favorite coffee shop at home, and spoke in Japanese. The last two workers nodded, spoke English too loudly, too slowly and told him to go back to his hotel room, that there was nothing he could do.  
  
He knew better.  
  
Shuichi had gotten up and walked to the center of the parking lot. The slight breeze moved his hair, his shirt sleeves, just like if he were really standing there. When the last of the workers were gone, Uesugi Eiri followed a silent Shuichi down a broken elevator shaft into a dark pile of debris. It just wasn't natural or right that Shuichi should be silent. 


	6. Something in the dark

Langer 6  
  
Notes: Sorry for the long delay! I was trying to write original and thinking I'd be a full time writer and stuff and yeah... I should finish this story soon.  
  
Chapter Six  
  
Just as it wasn't natural for Shuichi to be silent, some things were meant to work out badly. Climbing down into the elevator shaft, he understood that people did not climb back up. People that followed ghosts into rubble did not come back out. That was just the natural way of the world.  
  
Uesugi Eiri had never had much faith in the world and every time he feel in love everything always went to hell eventually. The concrete used in the building was good stuff, smooth and cool even when it was broken, twisted. The soles of Eiri's shoes were smooth, five hundred dollar Gucci's that slipped on the rubble. Deep enough into the hole not to be seen from outside, he paused, holding to a bent iron reinforcement bar and carpeted section of floor, he toed them off, letting them fall down into the darkness below him. It was a long time till the shoes hit, banging against things all the way down. Only the thought that Shuichi might, just might be alive, in this heap, kept him from just following the shoes down.  
  
Eiri had a good body though, strong, lean, good balance, and he needed them all on the way down. He wanted to have a chat with the people who'd approved this building. He was sure there had to be a good twelve stories below the surface. His hands left skin and blood in the rubble.  
  
He'd written some stories with happy endings, where the love interest wasn't dead just because the hero cried her back to live. They sold well. Things like that didn't really happen. Of course. He hadn't really seen Shuichi's spirit either.  
  
He wanted that happy ending now. He deserved one in his life, didn't he? To find Shuichi pinned under some rubble, unconscious, but alive, pink hair full of dust and face scrapped. Eiri could picture it in his mind, picture lifting the rubble off little by little. It was just his imagination though. His imagination was also very able to supply him with images of Shuichi that would defiantly put the pink explosion's spirit without a body.  
  
That had been his problem, he thought, hands sore, socks ruined and hiding scraps on his feet that made the thin silk sick to his skin. The bottom of the shaft had taken him down so far he couldn't see out the top, but then it was dark out there. He also couldn't understand why the emergency workers had not found this passage down. "Shuichi?"  
  
A little farther down the hall way he'd climbed into some emergency lighting was on. The floor was metal, and Eiri's logic took over where his imagination left off. It was a laboratory. And then hope flared like it hadn't in decades. Maybe it had never been like this, hope that he could really win, not just beat out others and win at writing or fighting, or being the most romantic, but win, as in be happy and be loved. This lab offered the chance that Shuichi was alive. If he was alive, Eiri could find him.  
  
Eiri picked up a broken steel bar, hefted it in his hand as the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. There was something down here. It made his instincts scream. He's been a Shinto Priest before he was a writer, and a fighter before that. He had no paper to write blessings on for his weapon, but he imagined the blessing he'd write, wrote it on his heart for love and good fortune, for righteous victory, and started down the hall. Shuichi appeared at the end of the hall, hands up, warning, head shaking 'no, no!', pink hair flying. "Go back! Don't come here!"  
  
Eiri tightened his grip on his bar. Something was going to get it's ass kicked for scaring Shuichi. 


	7. Intent before Action

Langer 7  
  
Yuki's hair stood on end. The energy was unbalanced with anger and hunger, violence. It needed cleansing.  
  
As a writer he didn't practice his religion often. He'd never written a Shinto believer into any of his stories. Qi gong didn't make any appearances either. It didn't mean he wasn't a priest and a practitioner.  
  
There was once a qi gong master who walked a field with a student. As the master stepped down he felt a wire under his toe and flung both the student and himself back, landing them both on their backsides. It was the master's awareness and connection with the world that had prevented them from being blown farther than their backsides by the bomb the wire would have triggered. That same sense vibrated in Yuki now, telling him the entire place was a bomb.  
  
He turned the corner and found the floor carpeted with Indian rugs, the space lit with warm flickering candles. Pausing he sent more intent, more energy into the blessing wrapped around his steel bar. Compared to the rest of the destruction, the room he stood on the edge of was impossible. A harem room, golden edges windows painted on the walls with make believe windows on the outside, the bodies of slave girls laying like gothic poetry over chairs and each other, draped in silks and blood, it was the end of all tales. At the center sat a Chinese man in black silk and golden earrings. His lips were crimson, too decadent to be red, too sensual to be scarlet. He smiled, ivory fangs pristine, as if they'd had nothing to do with the carnage in the room.  
  
Long fingers combed through pink hair, pulling it back from the unconscious face of the singer in his lap. "This one just smelled like he was a favorite of the gods, but I didn't expect them to send a bare foot, blond, Japanese man with a stick."  
  
Yuki let his defenses fall, letting himself become more fully Uesugi Eiri, priest, as he mouthed blessing incantations, invoking ancestors for assistance. What he got was the distinctive feel of Shuichi's teeth on his ear, nibbling, licking. Eiri blinked, twitched. "I'm going to kick you all the way back to the underworld."  
  
In that moment, he wasn't sure if he was talking to Shuichi's spirit clinging to his shoulder, or to the Chinese demon.  
  
"Oh, and a priest as well. The energy was so weak, I couldn't tell at first. Do forgive me," he said smooth as rancid butter. He tilted Shuichi's chin back, revealing a very pale face, dark circles under closed eyes. "You did come after this little one, didn't you?"  
  
Eiri's father had explained combat with demons, about on the same way that he'd explained sex with women, practical, grocery list. If Eiri wasn't sure his father was his father, he'd be concerned that his father hadn't actually done either of the tasks.  
  
"Maybe you're just too glutted to feel anything," Eiri said walking into the room, stepping over objects he wouldn't think about.  
  
"Speaking from experience? You smell like beer, and fear," the demon said, thumb playing with Shuichi's lip. "He's dead anyway. Spirit ran away the first time I tasted him."  
  
"Put him down, come fight me," Eiri said, taunting, smooth. There was such a thin layer of restraint left. Demon, man, God, Eiri didn't care. The rage that lived in the part of him that was Yuki had never really touched so deep as to make it into Eiri. It did so now, drawing energy up from the very ground he walked on.  
  
"Very well," the demon said, standing so that Shuichi slide down to the floor like a broken puppet. "It is nearly time for me to be gone from this place. America is such a lovely place. I must explore, sample some of every taste here. Don't you agree?"  
  
"I think you really need to die here," Eiri said, bonding with the Yuki rage. "America has enough demons."  
  
"So arrogant," the demon purred, seemingly still.  
  
Eiri felt the lunge in his spirit before he saw it. By the time he saw it, the Yuki part of him had already impaled the demon on the end of broken steel. Eiri twisted, pulled, attempting to free the bar.  
  
The demon snarled and jerked himself free. "What kind of priest are you," he snarled, quite angry.  
  
"The effective kind," Eiri said, dropping the bar, crumbling the blessing in his fist as he rearranged the characters in his mind. Chi burned in his fist, turning the blessing to dust.  
  
When the demon lunged again Eiri brought his hand up and blew dust. Every true intent he'd ever had to protect Shuichi, to love him, to cherish him was in that dust, every intent of good that Eiri had ever had flew in the face of the demon, who breathed it in. Intent, belief, will, Eiri held his ground as the demon reached for him. True decisions are hard to over come though and the demon watched his fingers shatter. Tiny micro shatters, the love of Eiri for Shuichi shattering him from the inside out. Fingers dissolved, dropping towards the carpet like sparkling spilled sugar. The demon's mouth opened, wordless, he released the chi he'd stolen. Eiri stood his ground, as now harmless dust blew past him, leaving his silhouette in the carpet.  
  
"I'm going to haunt you," Shuichi said, fairly cheerfully for a ghost.  
  
Eiri spun, golden eyes narrow. "Get back in your body, Idiot!"  
  
Shuichi's spirit got those big eyes, all emotion, all heart, and just like always, it made Eiri want to hold him. Yuki held his ground, stern as ice in January. "Now!"  
  
Eiri's will alone shoved Shuichi back. The next moment was blank, empty and he had no idea how he got from where he stood to where he knelt, holding Shuichi in his arms. Intent and spirit magic were powerful, but not powerful enough to close the bite marks on Shuichi's throat, or put blood back in his body, and Eiri crumbled like dust inside as he clutched Shuichi to him, pouring every warmth of chi from him. It never worked like this in real life. Death always won in real life.  
  
"Stupid idiot," he cried, soaking pink hair with tears. "Stupid idiot."  
  
"Don't be mean, Yuki!" It was such a small tiny voice, and yet, self assured.  
  
"Shuichi!"  
  
"You're hurting me, Yuki," Shuichi whined. "Let go!"  
  
Now this was real life! Real life he could deal with. "Stupid, ungrateful brat," Yuki said with all the love he felt.  
  
The day would find the rescuers back, find Touma back, but he didn't want to wait here in this room. "Is anything broken?"  
  
"How should I know? God, I feel aweful!"  
  
Okay, maybe they could wait here, for emergency crews. The day had started over for Eiri though. As long as Shuichi lived Eiri would live, and there would be life where ever they were. "Don't worry. You look awful too."  
  
"Yuki!" Shuichi smacked Yuki's chest with a weak hand.  
  
"Yes, Shuichi?"  
  
"I love you," he said, including a bad word that American radio wouldn't allow said live. "I love you."  
  
"I love you too, Idiot." 


End file.
